I picked up my car in Guangzhou on October 28th. To make it easier for everyone to understand my car purchasing, pickup, and driving process, this article is written in a timeline format.
My profile: over 30 years old, a father, and an experienced driver with over 10 years of driving experience. I have driven gas cars like BMW, EVs like 2020 NIO ES6 (which was sold at the end of September) and 2021 Tesla Model Y RWD (with 60-degree lithium iron phosphate battery). I work and live in Guangzhou, and my driving range is mainly in the Pearl River Delta region, occasionally in eastern, northern, and western Guangdong provinces, but I have never driven outside Guangdong province.
August 10th: I placed a blind order for G9 by paying 2000 yuan on the same day G9’s interior was first revealed.
September 12th: I learned about the G9 static experience in Tianhe City, Panyu, Guangzhou, and went to see a sample car. The car was a white G9 with a multi-spoke 650X wheel.
September 21st: Like everyone else, I watched the launch event at night. Actually, I had learned a lot about G9 through various channels before the event. After watching it, because of my budget and actual driving needs, I gave up on the 4WD version. But the configuration at that time was daunting, and I basically settled on 702E, but I was unsure whether to add 5D seats or XNGP options (in other words, my budget was not enough).
September 23rd: After changing the configuration, I chose the 702 Pro version, white body paint, five-spoke wheels, and orange interior. I paid the deposit and signed the contract on the same evening. Later, the salesperson told me that I was the first to sign a contract in their store (a small-scale Xpeng store in the suburbs of Guangzhou). When signing the contract, I chose car financing.
September 26th: The app randomly assigned China Construction Bank to help me with the car financing. I made an appointment with the Xpeng store on September 29th to handle the loan procedures.
September 29th: I went to the store and completed the loan procedures with the loan manager from China Construction Bank. Coincidentally, the display car of the same configuration as mine arrived at the store on the same day. I received a text message from China Construction Bank in the evening notifying me that the car loan had been approved.
September 30th: The salesperson at the store informed me that test drives would be available on National Day.
October 2nd:
On the day of the test drive at the store, the test drive car was a 650 Max. Our store has some restrictions on the test drive route, so I tested it for less than 10 minutes and mainly experienced the acceleration (I set it to 100% rear-wheel drive during the test drive), brakes, steering, U-turn, voice, car machine, and so on.
October 15th:
At the delivery, I was asked if I could pick up the car as soon as possible after the car is assembled (delivery needs to be completed within 7 days after the new car is assembled). Without hesitation, I said yes.
October 16th – 24th:
Check the status of the vehicle allocation every day on the App>_<.
October 25th:
The App shows that the car has been allocated, and the delivery notification came in the afternoon. I paid the final payment in the afternoon of the same day. When paying the final payment, I also paid the 600 yuan license plate fee.
October 26th:
Bought insurance on the App the same day. The total cost for strong insurance, vehicle damage insurance, and 2 million third-party liability insurance is more than 8,800 yuan (insurance is really expensive in Guangzhou…). I made an appointment with the delivery specialist for October 28th to pick up the car.
October 28th:
Arrived at the Guangzhou Huangpu delivery center at 10 am. The delivery process took about 70 minutes (vehicle inspection, signing documents, delivery, teaching basic functions of G9 and car machine, applying for temporary license plates, etc.). The car machine version during the delivery was Xmart OS 4.0. When picking up the car, I found out that the rear window is now equipped with privacy glass as standard, a key was provided, a foot pad was given, 1 year of iQiyi membership was provided, the blind order of 5,000 yuan worth of equity was converted into 50,000 points and 1,500 kWh of annual charging rights, which were credited to me when I picked up the car. The gifted mattress was placed in the rear trunk, the gifted sunshade and 2 headrests were already installed before delivery.After Pickup: It’s been 3 days since I picked up the car, and I’ve only driven it for just over 50 kilometers (I planned to go out for a weekend trip, but the sudden outbreak of the pandemic in Guangzhou made me too scared to go out). So far, the driving experience feels really good (standard mode, strong kinetic energy recovery). Although the G9 Pro 702 only has a mechanical suspension, it feels better than the ES6 with an air suspension on city roads, and much better than the Model Y. The 702 only has a rear-wheel drive 230kw permanent magnet motor, but the power is completely adequate. After pickup, I charged the battery to 100% at home (using the 7kw charging pile NIO gave me before, the compatibility is no problem). The range displayed is 569 kilometers WLTP, but if I only drive it in the city, the actual range of the G9 Pro 702 should be even greater.
Brake Nodding Issue: Before the pickup, a friend in the car owner group reported that there was a brake nodding issue with the rear-wheel-drive version during test drives. After pickup, I tried different braking methods at several red lights. So far, the most effective way to reduce brake nods is to first release the accelerator and reduce the speed, then press the brake pedal to 70-80%, wait until the speed drops to 0km/h, and then press the brake pedal to the bottom to activate the automatic parking. This way, there are basically no brake nods.
I hope the above sharing is helpful to those who are interested in G9. I will continue to share my driving experience, vehicle experience, energy consumption data, and charging experience (using S2 and S4 charging piles) in the future.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.